Second Cycle

I pulled the red lever on the ceiling of my sleep compartment, just inches above my head, and took a deep breath. The bubble I lay in fogged up and I began to feel groggy from the gas it released. All on schedule.

My body was in a tight space in more ways than one. My bed was comfy – comfy beyond anything I’d ever experienced, and for good reason. I assumed if I was going to sleep for a few hundred years the last thing I needed was to wake up with a sore back. The compartment, a bed surrounded by a chemically strengthened plexiglass bubble, was a bit claustrophobic, not that that really mattered.

As I was drifting off, I felt the chill of the freezing that would take over my compartment, and much of the space module I was on. The operators had set it to freeze for as long as their algorithms would allow and they’d made it very clear to me to not expect anyone I now knew or loved to be alive when I awoke.

In time, electric impulses would awaken me and the compartment’s controls would measure my vitals, while several IVs ensured my body would survive the long sleep with a gradual awakening. Or so they assured me.

The plan was to have me sleep for as long as the technology would permit, until a default mechanism would awaken me the moment the temperature raised to a threshold, as it slowly returned to normal.

I was one of many volunteers for this mission. Or rather, experiment. And there was only one prototype, so only one volunteer and one test. When we signed up we all knew we could be goners quite easily. None of us had the illusion the technology wizards at NASA were creating a failsafe project. I guess we all had one thing in common: Life wasn’t really working out, so why not take a chance and start anew a few hundred years in the future. Or thousands. The date of the ‘awakening’ was unknown to us. There was always the chance I’d only sleep for a few days before a malfunction would initiate the awakening mechanisms.

Once I did awake, the plan was to land the module and report to my department at the little-known NASA Special Projects headquarters just outside Houston. It would be the only department aware of the experiment since the Director, my beloved ‘Chief’, had to jump through a few hoops and grease a few palms with favours to even get the necessary approvals.

I was so glad I pushed myself more than ever to beat out the competition. Hell, it was the first game I’d ever won in my life. Outlasting the others in physical tests as well as proving to the NASA shrinks I was ‘grounded’, knew what I was doing. Or they at least believed I did, for some reason.

No communications were on board, due to the secrecy of the mission. NASA Special Projects did not want other departments within NASA, or foreign space agencies, to detect radio signals or any other clue of the ship’s existence. ‘Operation Nostos’ was to be kept under wraps from anyone outside our small working group. My family and friends were told I was off on a mission and as the weeks, months, years went by, they would eventually be told of my ship’s unfortunate crash landing on some asteroid - while I lay in my compartment bubble and dreamt of how great life will be on my return to Earth, centuries in the future.

I thought of what life would be like when I could finally reveal the successful mission to the adulation of all. While NASA used the sleep technology for manned missions to faraway planets, trips that would take decades or even centuries, I would be feted and adored as a trailblazer. No shortage of lavish dinners, adoring females, maybe even throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. Assuming mankind still played baseball.

My eyelids felt like cast-iron weights bearing down and I knew I only had a few more conscious moments before my long sleep would begin. Not sure why, but I felt secure and satisfied. I knew I would not awaken for another year or another century, or if the technology was really good – maybe even a thousand years. I knew that was possible. The technology was as impressive as I’d ever seen. The ship was made from metals that were found on one of Saturn’s many moons, stronger than anything ever found or created on Earth. The ship itself was disguised as a meteor so that any Earth ship – or alien ship, for that matter - would not intercept it and destroy the experiment. And me. Especially when I had no capability of responding to messages.

The year was 2096. I glanced at the only timing device on the ship, my digital wristband, and wondered what it would read when I awoke. I wasn’t apprehensive. I welcomed whatever change would come. And if all the current generation and generations after had died off on Earth, who knew what kind of men and women would occupy our crazy and mysterious planet. These thoughts continued to flow through my mind as my eyes finally shut and consciousness left me.

__                   __                  __

Was it a million years or a day later that I awoke?

I felt fluids from the IVs flowing through my body, I felt cold from the freezing that was slowly wearing off. My mouth was dry, my muscles felt limp, but the freezing of the compartment and the mechanisms that were attached to various parts of my body had obviously worked. I was alive!

As the temperature hit another threshold, beyond the one that woke me, the globe of the compartment rolled open. I lay there for a few hours as the fluids worked their way through me and I felt my body revive. Then my bed moved to a vertical position so that when the straps released I could literally walk out of it. As amazing as I thought that was, as my genius colleagues had promised, I actually did walk, without much difficulty. Either I had not been asleep for long or the mechanisms my genius colleagues put into place had worked like a dream.

And then I remembered my wristband. I looked down at it and felt disappointment. The mechanism was not lit up, it had malfunctioned during my sleep. No idea of how long the mission lasted…

But I had to attend to more important matters: Landing the ship. I swallowed some energy pills left for when I awoke, skimmed a medical readout that stated my vitals were normal, and disconnected all the mechanisms from my body.

I then slid into my pilot seat and began to guide the ship back to Earth. It was on a random orbit around Mars, programmed to change every few months so as to avoid attention. I set the controls and sat back since it would take a several days to arrive back home. Home! The disbelief that my journey was finally ending began to set in. Assuming I had been away for a few hundred years, which all the equations and planning and simulations strongly suggested was likely, there would be no one I knew for me to greet upon landing and say ‘Hey, I’m back!’

__                   __                  __

It's days later. Earth is in sight. I’m now overwhelmed by curiosity. How long had I been gone? If centuries, was there even a NASA to return to. Was there any civilization? Had we destroyed our cities and became barbarians again, like the dystopian movies we watched. These thoughts pierced into my psyche as I guided the ship down, now just minutes from landing.

The plan was to land in a small wooded area not far from the NASA offices that housed our department. Then change into civilian clothes and find my way there – assuming NASA still existed. Did I feel alone and a bit deserted by my old colleagues? Of course. No grandiose landing party and celebration awaited me. But I was warned about this. It was a clandestine mission that only a handful of NASA officials worked on, knew about, and would hand down to the following generations who occupied our department.

Unlike typical space missions, it would not be possible for anyone to know when I finally landed, so I was on my own for returning to our headquarters from the ship. I’d have to find my way back like some ancient aboriginal sent away on a tribal ritual.

Once I finally presented myself to my Chief’s successor, I’d reveal the ship’s location. My job would be done. My new colleagues would then immerse themselves in the ship’s databanks, unlocked by a code only accessible by our department.

The ship lurched as I slowed it, finding a small clearing. For the last few hundred feet anyone watching would have seen what appeared to be a small meteor shooting flames out of its bottom as it lowered perfectly vertically to the ground. Touchdown! I took a deep breath, opened the hatch, lowered a small ladder and climbed back onto the planet I had vacated for – God knows how long.

I stepped down, feeling some euphoria but also anxiety. I don’t know what bothered me more: That everyone I had known and loved were most likely all long dead or that I could be walking into some dangerous lair of a civilization that had long ago buried all historical records of what my contemporaries had accomplished. Such people would most likely not be nostalgic enough to ask me stories of the good old days, but more likely decide I would make a perfect sacrifice to their gods. Or maybe a tasty meal.

It was dark. I walked through the woods, fascinated at the possibilities. As I came out of the last line of trees, I stopped, overcome by vast disappointment.

In front of me was a familiar speedway, one that travelled from my department’s headquarters to the city a few miles away. And in the distance, hovering just a couple of feet above the roadway at the altitude for eastbound traffic, bound for the NASA offices, was a familiar speedcar taxi used to shuttle NASA personnel. As if it was yesterday, I took out my flare gun, shot it in the air and the taxi stopped to pick me up. Telling the driver my destination and showing my ID, I lay back in the passenger seat, head as far back as it would go behind my body, deflated and feeling the failure I had prayed would not happen. At best I was away for a few decades, possibly a couple of generations, but even that was unlikely given the technology had not seemed to change one iota from when I left. If he was still the guy in charge, the Chief would not be happy. Then it occurred to me to ask the question.

‘Driver, what year is it?’

The driver kept looking straight ahead as he answered me. ‘Where you been, Mack? It’s 2096.’

I groaned out loud. A few seconds later he stopped at the entrance of my headquarters. 

Operation Nostos was a flop. How devastating! Was it a couple of days that I was away… maybe a few weeks? I didn’t think of asking the exact date, but it didn’t really matter. This would be a huge letdown for the Chief - and my colleagues. The fact they would be here for me to meet and greet, rather than dead and buried for centuries, did not, sadly, make me feel any better.

I walked through the lobby to the elevator, which took me to the eighteenth floor, only accessed by our department. Getting off, I showed my ID and thumbprint to the security gatekeeper, who opened the department access door. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was just after five in the morning so very few people, if any, would be on shift now. Hopefully the Chief would be pulling one of his all-nighters so I could break the news quickly rather than wait for a punishing three or four hours till he showed up.

I came to his door and saw the light was on, knocked and very slowly walked in. He sat with his back to me, working on his back wall computer with a handheld.

I spoke in a hushed tone and just said one word. ‘Chief…’

The Chief swiveled his chair around, surprised. ‘Edwards, you’re a bit early, aren’t you?’

He wasn’t grimacing as I had imagined he should.

‘Sorry, Chief. I realize the mission is a flop. I don’t understand it myself.’ I sat down, relieved somewhat that he was taking it so well, at least so far. But also a bit bothered by his calm demeanor. Was there something he knew that I didn’t know?

I continued to ramble. ‘I never expected to return so soon, I know none of us did. But I haven’t even checked the date – can you tell me how long I’ve been away?’

The Chief looked puzzled at first and then laughed. ‘Cut out the bullshit, Edwards. You’re due to blast off next week, so I don’t have time for your pranks.’